An international consortium of 46 partners led by the Belgian Port of Antwerp will receive a €25 million grant from the European Horizon 2020 programme to showcase concrete solutions for reducing GHG emissions while safeguarding competitiveness in European ports.
The PIONEERS consortium representing ports, terminal and transport operators, forwarders, knowledge institutes, technology developers, innovators, and public entities will rethink all aspects of port operations, ranging from terminal operations, concession agreements, mobility, connectivity, fuels to models for cooperation and production, storage and use of energy. The project has a timeframe of 5 years starting at the end of 2021.
The PIONEERS (Portable Innovation Open Network for Efficiency and Emissions Reduction Solutions) consortium convinced evaluators with a variety of 19 ambitious demonstrators in the field of clean energy production and supply, sustainable port design, modal shift and flows optimization, and digital transformation.
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The actions include renewable energy generation and deployment of electric, hydrogen and methanol vehicles; building and heating networks retrofit for energy efficiency; implementation of circular economy approaches in infrastructure works; automation; and deployment of digital platforms to promote modal shift and ensure optimised vehicle, vessel and container movements.
Port of Antwerp will host the majority of demonstrators and showcase a real life Green Port. The ports of Barcelona, Constanta and Venlo, as fellow ports, will play an active role in maximizing the transferability of the solutions and are engaged to implement the best practices from the project.
The PIONEERS project is in line with the Port of Antwerp’s commitment to becoming a carbon-neutral port in 2050, through partnerships and active dialogue with a wide stakeholder network.
Port of Antwerp aims to be the first world port that reconciles economy, people and climate. In order to be climate-neutral by 2050, we need to act now. PIONEERS proves how ambitious Port of Antwerp is in pioneering together with a wide stakeholder network to achieve our goal,
…said Jacques Vandermeiren, CEO Port of Antwerp.
